RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2021/06/27/the-maricopa-county-audit-completed-paper-ballot-examination-heres-what-happens-next-n1457590

The forensic audit of the 2020 election in Maricopa County, Ariz., has completed the counting and examination of paper ballots.

The Maricopa Arizona Audit Twitter account made the announcement Friday evening.

“Audit Update: Paper examination and counting are finished today,” read the tweet. “Thank you to all the amazing Arizona volunteers who made this audit possible!”

Washington Examiner: 

The announcement confirming the conclusion of the ballot inspection portion of the audit comes less than two weeks after auditors finished a recount of 2.1 million ballots cast in Arizona’s most populous county, which includes Phoenix, with a few exceptions, such as Braille ballots.

The physical review of ballots included an inspection of their weight and thickness, examination of folds under microscopes, and workers holding ballots up to UV lights.

Towards the end of the process, workers were examining 100,000 ballots per day, the Maricopa Arizona Audit said in a tweet on Thursday.

The audit also included the capturing of information from voting machines, after which Arizona’s Democratic secretary of state, Katie Hobbs,advised the county to replace its voting machines over concerns that the review compromised their “security and integrity“

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/06/election_integrity_the_firewall_that_keeps_america_free.html

During the last year and half it’s become obvious to anyone whose head is not in the sand that America has been under assault on multiple levels from within. There is no denying that the COVID-19 viral invasion was a catalyst for so much of the disruption of 2020, culminating in election irregularity in November.

By spring 2020, normal activities and businesses were largely shut down nationwide by federal and local governments’ response to COVID-19.  Antifa and BLM protests and riots in May and June brought the costliest manmade damage to American property in history. Then the cancel culture, already ensconced and in control of college and university campuses, came to the streets and parks of America in the tearing down historic monuments — all the while law enforcement was coming under severe attack with numerous police departments facing prospects of defunding.

This lockdown-crisis environment gave Democrats an opportunity to push for change in state election rules to their advantage, such as allowing wholesale distribution of mail-in ballots, extension of deadlines for counting those ballots, and legal challenges to voter ID and signature verification laws. And we all now know the result: the November 3rd election was characterized by unprecedented election irregularities and charges of vote fraud in more states than any prior election.

The confluence of all this has certainly brought on confusion for many Americans.  But a significant group of people believe they see things with clarity. Where I live in South Florida it’s an incredible melting pot of people — immigrants from all over the world. Many of my acquaintances and friends — from Eastern and Slavic Europe and Russia, Latin America, and Southeast Asia — have commented that what they see going on in America is a fairly classic communist-type subversion.  They believe that the takedown of America is well advanced and now poses a real threat to continuation of the United States as a free nation.  

My immigrant and refugee friends point out that the communist playbook is really quite easy to understand. Several who lived under communist systems commented that communist revolutionaries are masters at using false fronts, whether Critical Race Theory or social justice Marxist theories of wealth redistribution to advance their real objective which is one-party rule and total control of society. While my friends see this so clearly, they are dumbfounded and mystified that so many American people remain so naïve and passive in the face of cancel culture, censorship, and creeping cultural totalitarianism that is so obviously and rapidly redefining the country.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/biden-lawsuit-against-georgia-election-law-illustrates-radicalism-of-doj-and-its-civil-rights-chief/

As our Caroline Downey reports, the Justice Department will today announce that it is suing Georgia over the latter’s election-integrity law. This is ridiculous. The law provides for voting far more extensive than the Constitution’s minimal standards, and well beyond what, about five minutes ago, were state-law norms. The lawsuit is yet another sign, as if we needed one, that the Biden Justice Department is the Obama DOJ 2.0, an activist tool that puts the awesome law-enforcement power of the federal government in the service of woke progressivism.

This is not a surprise, of course. The lawsuit will be brought by DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, which Biden put in the radical hands of Kristen Clarke, for whose confirmation we can thank Senator Susan Collins of Maine, the lone Republican to assent. I wrote about Clarke when she was nominated:

At the all-important Civil Rights Division, Biden has appointed Kristen Clarke, a radical with a history of racist and anti-Semitic commentary. At Harvard, where she led the Black Students Association as an undergrad, Clarke publicly contended that blacks were superior to whites physically and mentally because their brains contain higher amounts of neuro-melanin. Blacks are also spiritually superior, she said, though she elaborated that this is not an attribute that can be “measured based on Eurocentric standards.”

Though she does not exactly come off like a career in stand-up was an option, Clarke would like us to believe that she was just joking — resorting to parody in her umbrage over the publication of Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein’s The Bell Curve. People seemed to think she was pretty serious at the time, as she took pains to cite Richard King, a psychiatrist and melanin/pineal-gland scholar, as authority for the proposition that melanin is “the chemical basis for the cultural differences between blacks and whites,” and the reason why “Black infants sit, crawl and walk sooner than whites.” (C’mon, you know you were wondering!) On a related subject, Clarke certainly seemed serious when she invited a notoriously anti-Semitic Trinidadian academic, Tony Martin, to expound on his theories about the racism of the Torah and the “Jewish monopoly over Blacks” — and when she later asserted, in his defense, “Professor Martin is an intelligent, well-versed Black intellectual who bases his information on indisputable fact.”

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/attorney-general-merrick-garland-announces-lawsuit-against-georgia-over-its-voting-law/

The Justice Department is suing the state of Georgia over its voting law, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Civil Rights division chief Kristen Clarke announced Friday, arguing that the state is violating federal law by inhibiting voting rights on the basis of race.

“Recent changes to Georgia’s election laws were enacted with the purpose of denying or abridging the right of Black Georgians to vote on account of their race or color, in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act,” Garland said Friday at the Justice Department.

Garland, flanked by other department leaders, including Clarke, Deputy Attorney General Monaco, and Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta, told reporters that the lawsuit “is the first of many steps we are taking to ensure that all eligible voters can cast a vote, that all lawful votes are counted and that every voter has access to accurate information.”

Georgia’s new election law, signed by GOP Governor Brian Kemp in March, outraged Democrats and voting rights groups with voter ID provisions and changes to mail-in voting that they say will make it more difficult for minorities and poorer voters to cast their ballots. While it adds new restrictions to absentee voting, the law also expands early voting opportunities, formalizing provisions that accommodated voters during the pandemic. It also codifies the use of drop boxes with strict rules on how they can be used and sets new rules for state and local election officials.

Kemp responded to the announcement via Twitter, saying, “This lawsuit is born out of the lies and misinformation the Biden administration has pushed against Georgia’s Election Integrity Act from the start. Joe Biden, Stacey Abrams, and their allies tried to force an unconstitutional elections power grab through Congress – and failed.”

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger responded similarly, adding, “It is no surprise that they would operationalize their lies with the full force of the federal government. I look forward to meeting them, and beating them, in court.”

In tandem with the announcement, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco issued a new memo Friday, directing the FBI and federal prosecutors across the country to identify, investigate and prosecute threats against election officials and poll workers, and announced the creation of a task force to address the spike in threats.

“A threat to any election official, worker, or volunteer is, at bottom, a threat to democracy,” Monaco said in the memo. “We will promptly and vigorously prosecute offenders to protect the rights of American voters, to punish those who engage in this criminal behavior, and to send the unmistakable message that such conduct will not be tolerated.”

“Several studies show that Georgia experienced record voter turnout and participation rates in the 2020 election cycle. Approximately two-thirds of eligible voters in the state cast a ballot in the November election, just over the national average. This is cause for celebration,” Garland said. “But then in March of 2021, Georgia’s legislature passed SB 202. Many of that law’s provisions make it harder for people to vote.”

“Laws adopted with a racially motivated purpose, like Georgia Senate Bill 202, simply have no place in democracy today,” Clarke said. She highlighted the prohibition on groups that are no longer allowed to hand out food and water to voters in order to make their wait in long lines at polling places more comfortable on election day. Clarke called that particular ban “needless” and alleged it proved “unlawful discriminatory intent.”

Garland’s announcement was expected, even if its timing was not. Two weeks ago, he delivered a speech promising to expand the Justice Department’s efforts to protect voting rights in response to the weakening of the federal Voting Rights Act by the Supreme Court in 2013. He said then that the department would confront state and local efforts that “will make it harder to vote,” and examine election laws “to determine whether they discriminate against Black voters and other voters of color.”  

On Friday, Garland called on Congress to enact legislation, which the House is currently working on with the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, or H.R. 4, although it has yet to be introduced. The bill would restore Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a key provision that was gutted by the Supreme Court in 2013. 

https://amgreatness.com/2021/06/23/the-party-of-science-cant-do-math/

The Democrats can pretend to be the “party of science” but one thing is for sure: they are definitely not the party of math.

The 2020 election has been and likely will continue to be a point of great contention among Americans in all 50 states. Even as a young American born during the Clinton Administration, I’ve noticed a skyrocketing spike in partisan strife between ordinary Americans. 

In the past few years alone, we’ve watched the media become ever more vicious, the politicians markedly more brazen, and the political ruling class dangerously more corrupt.

We are told to believe that Joe Biden received 81 million votes—the most in history—while winning only 509 counties across the country—the fewest in history.

Millions of Americans not only have concerns about election integrity but have also developed the conviction that America is no longer governed “by the people” and instead is governed by political power brokers.

We are told to believe that for only the second time since 1952, and that for the first time in nearly 25 years, a Democratic candidate for president won Arizona and did so by a margin of roughly 10,000 votes statewide.

In response, a small group of courageous leaders in the Arizona State Senate did the responsible thing: they asked for an independent forensic audit of their own election to ensure that this apparent, sudden, and drastic change was actually one called for by the people of Arizona. 

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/democrats-get-an-anti-leftist-wake-up-call-from-new-york/

President Biden gave a speech this afternoon on the rising crime rate. Even the White House admits that in recent months “homicides rose 30 percent and gun assaults rose 8 percent in large cities.”

The timing is politically significant given the results of Tuesday’s New York City mayor’s primary. Crime and the Loony Left’s agenda were dominant issues.

Brooklyn Borough president Eric Adams, who spent 22 years as a cop, currently has a ten-point lead in the Democratic primary. Outstanding absentee ballots and NYC’s bizarre ranked-choice voting system will delay a final count until mid July. But Adams is the prohibitive favorite to win. Nathaniel Rakich at FiveThirtyEight says that Adams can start “measuring the drapes” at City Hall.

If he wins, it will be because he ran full tilt against defunding the police.

Starting in 1994, smarter policing under Mayors Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg made New York the safest big city in America. Those gains eroded under Mayor Bill de Blasio and accelerated last year with his weak response to riots, the elimination of bail, and the demonizing of the NYPD.

Adams ran full tilt against the leftist agenda of Wiley, a de Blasio appointee who is now in second place in the vote count.  He attacked her for wanting to slash NYPD’s budget and being open to the idea of taking their guns away.

He also called for lifting the cap on charter schools so the half of New York City students who fail basic proficiency tests would have a chance at a better education. He vowed to make better use of a law to get the mentally ill homeless to take the medications they need. He clashed with Governor Andrew Cuomo over how fast to end the city’s lockdown and get people back to work.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2021/06/23/suddenly-democrats-express-support-for-voter-id-laws-n1456545

Democrats have used voter ID laws to hammer Republicans for their supposed racism in supporting this simple voting integrity measure. In some campaigns, such as the Georgia governor’s race of 2018, Democratic hysterical opposition to voter ID led to a media frenzy about the “suppression” of the black vote.

It was never anything of the sort, of course. And as proof, try this on for size: National Democrats who skewered the GOP for passing voter ID laws now say it’s fine. Some, like Georgia’s Stacey Abrams (who wept about “suppression” of the black vote), now claim it’s simple common sense.

Washington Examiner:

In 2018, Georgia’s wannabe governor, Stacey Abrams, said voter ID laws are intended to “scare people out of voting.” Now, she audaciously says, “No one has ever objected to having to prove who you are to vote. It’s been part of our nation’s history since the inception of voting.”

Recently elected Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock is even more brazen in lying about opposing voter ID laws.

For years, then-Pastor Raphael Warnock, now a senator from Georgia, claimed ID laws were a form of “voter suppression” so “unnecessary and unjustifiable” that they amount to “dismember[ing]” Martin Luther King Jr.

Now he lies, “I have never been opposed to voter ID. And in fact, I don’t know anybody who is.”

The sudden reversal is because swing Democrat Joe Manchin agreed to support a compromise in the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act that included voter ID.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2021/06/23/buffalo-elects-socialist-mayor-while-ny-city-could-very-well-elect-a-law-and-order-democrat-n1456483

Buffalo, the second-largest city in New York, elected a woman, a political novice, and a socialist as mayor on Tuesday night. India Walton defeated 4-term incumbent Mayor Byron Brown by 1500 votes.

It was a shocking result — if you hadn’t been paying attention the last 4 years. Brown, a former state Democratic Party chair and a charter member of the New York political establishment, lost to a socialist because the socialist wasn’t part of the establishment. If that’s too complicated for you, look at the mayoral results in New York City.

Eric Adams is holding a lead at the moment. In fact, no one knows what’s going on with this “ranked voting” that’s confusing everyone. Indeed, the purpose of rank voting appears to be designed to make the result of the election as muddled as possible.

Not a bug. A feature.

Adams leads by a small plurality. The race will almost certainly be decided by voters’ second, third, fourth, and fifth choices. Adams may be the first choice of a plurality of voters, but with so many candidates in the race, he may end up not winning anything.

But Adams, a former Republican, supports funding for more police. His campaign platform reads, “If we are for SAFETY — we NEED the NYPD!”

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2021/06/19/is-pennsylvania-on-the-verge-of-forensic-election-audit-n1455822

Pennsylvania state Senator Dave Argall, who chairs the committee in charge of overseeing elections, told the Pennsylvania Capital-Star that a forensic audit was a “very real possibility.”

“There are a lot of things under consideration right now, and I told them to check back in a week or two and we hope to have some more detail,” Argall said regarding a meeting he had with activists who support the audit on Wednesday.

President Trump called out Argall and other state senators by name in a statement earlier this week. “Why is State Senator Jake Corman of Pennsylvania fighting so hard that there not be a Forensic Audit of the 2020 Presidential Election Scam?” Trump asked in a statement. “Corman is fighting as though he were a Radical Left Democrat, saying that a Forensic Audit of Pennsylvania not take place. Why is Senator David Argall playing the same game? Are they stupid, corrupt, or naive? What is going on?”

“Other State Senators want this Forensic Audit to take place—immediately,” Trump continued. “I feel certain that if Corman continues along this path of resistance, with its lack of transparency, he will be primaried and lose by big numbers. What went on in Philadelphia and other areas of the State must be properly and legally exposed. If it is not, just like with open Borders, we won’t have a Country anymore!”

https://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2021/06/18/georgias_election_reform_makes_it_easy_to_vote_and_hard_to_cheat_781903.html

Regardless of one’s political affiliation, it’s not difficult to find voters in Georgia who were discouraged by the messiness of the 2020 election process.

It’s one thing to be disappointed by the outcome. It’s entirely another to feel disenfranchised and frustrated by questions and uncertainties surrounding absentee ballot handling, unsecured drop boxes, and questionable third-party funding of local elections.

In evaluating federal, state, and local voting safeguards, these and other serious complications — glitches, missing votes, even water pipe breakages at polling locations or ballot drop boxes — raised legitimate concerns and weakened voter confidence in Georgia’s election integrity.

Such concerns ultimately weaken voter confidence and decrease participation in elections regardless of political persuasion and prompted Georgia lawmakers to modernize voting laws to make it easier to vote and harder to interfere with Georgia’s elections. 

As expected, a few partisan individuals and groups rushed to label Georgia’s new election reform law, the Georgia Election Integrity Act of 2021, (SB202) as an act of voter suppression. However, their claims are simply not true: reforms introduced in this legislation expand voting access for all Georgia voters while enhancing the security of the process.